For Shell Real Estate, necessity was the mother of invention when it came to unifying a highly decentralized network of locations and facilities on a global scale.

The result was not only the alignment of real estate strategy with Shell Oil Company's business strategy, but a seat at the company's senior management table as a trusted partner of the CFO. The development and implementation of the Shell Real Estate "Real Link" database proved to be a key tool in the realization of this strategic positioning.

"We had multiple lines of business that operated separately," related Rob Becker of Shell Oil. "Three years ago, we began to globalize processes around these lines, including the delivery of services. We changed our practices, starting with a process leading to a single real estate strategy."

Part of the new approach was the innovative Real Link data base, a web-based intranet reporting and management resource accessible to employees the world over. The driver of Real Link was "the need to identify best practices and characteristics across all the occupiers of real estate," according to Richard McBlaine of Jones Lang LaSalle, Shell's global real estate and workplace service provider.

Among the benefits of the interactive tool that pulls from the corporate database and is continuously updated are:

"It ultimately operationalizes the link between business strategy and real estate execution," McBlaine noted, adding that Real Link feeds directly into business objectives including enhanced branding, cost reduction, innovation, increased market share and reduction of capital costs because the system informs the decision maker on key functions such as lease renegotiation, energy audits, lease audits and consolidation of office space.

All of this is run through filters like operating ratios that also relate to 31 tactics and opportunities for improvement that the real estate group has integrated with the company's business strategies. "It all leads to best practices and (answers) questions that are tested against documented cases," said Rob Becker. He offered the example of how Real Link can filter performance data on property portfolios to create ranking of properties by cost because it links local market data to the total portfolio, in addition to offering a new resource for management reporting. "It helps get operations in the field to be proactively seeking out corrective actions," Becker added.

Real Link's design as a dynamic, not static, tool means that managers anywhere can rely on up-to-date data, trends and practices that better inform them to make sound decisions and take corrective actions versus the benchmarks that show the range of standards on which key occupancy and cost decisions should rest.

The results have been appreciable since Real Link's introduction by Shell Real Estate in 2003:

Considering the $125 million annual budget for corporate real estate allocated by Shell, the early ROI is substantial. Plus, other benefits have accrued that have strengthened real estate's role as a strategic partner within the enterprise. "2004 was the first year we've had a global real estate plan, and it was approved by Shell's senior management as a result of standardizing our real estate processes," Becker said. "It's a quantum leap for real estate inside Shell."

– Richard Kadzis, CoreNet Global